 I got the quorum. Good. Okay. So it's six. So one, we'll start this meeting of the regular meeting of the RPC board. And we do not have a consent agenda tonight. So we will move to, since we have our attendance, is there any changes to the agenda? Not hearing anything. We'll take the next item is for anyone who is here who wants to discuss something that is not on the agenda. This is your opportunity to do so. Doesn't look like anybody's here to do that either. So now we'll move into a new fun part of the meeting and that's talking about staff. And this time it's Amy Forrest and the newest one, Mackenzie. So I'm up first. Yes. Hello everyone. My name is Forrest Cohen. My title is Senior Business Manager. And I run the business office with my colleagues Amy and Mackenzie, with Charlie's direction, of course. I've been with the RPC for a little over 14 years now. OMG. I think I may have been Charlie's first hire here at the RPC. I was born in Vermont. I grew up in the Northeast Kingdom, which is the other corner. I have a Master's of Public Administration from UVM. Before this job, I worked for a couple of private consulting firms in Burlington. So what do I do here? The business office is primarily responsible for the financial functions of the RPC. We're going to hear about the audit tonight. The business office obviously plays a very central role with that every year. We are the Human Resources Department. So that's payroll, that's benefits administration, hiring. I work with Charlie and the rest of the leadership team on developing UPWP, which is our annual work program. The budget is a integral part of that. I also work on internal policy developments or personnel policies. I also oversee and manage a majority of our contracting. So the RPC receives a lot of state and federal grants. That's our primary revenue source. So there's a lot of grant administration that the business office does. So one of the most critical functions there is what we call the monthly billing. The monthly billing is taking all of the staff hour data, all of the consultant invoices, vendor invoices that we receive, and turning those into invoices that we send out to our grantors. And that's how we get paid, which is obviously a critical function and allows us to keep running, doing all the great planning work that we do. So I get a ton of help with all of this from Amy and now Mackenzie. So big thanks to them. And now I will let Amy do her introduction. Thanks everybody. The next up is Amy. Thank you, Catherine. Thanks for us. So, yes. Hi everybody. I'm Amy, the business office manager. And I've been with the CCRPC for four years now. Prior to CCRPC, I was with the VSEC. I really like when you see clearly, I didn't want to leave. So I'm back. My degree is in women's studies, but I've always worked with numbers in financial departments. And Boris pointed out that the business office is responsible for many functions within the CCRPC. And my personal focus is on the processing. I process lots of transactions every day. And the work includes accounts receivables, payables. I'm in charge of payroll. I provide support for all of the monthly billings. We have 170 projects in the UPWP, I think Charlie said, and the training. So those 170 projects are something that I come across in the course of the year, multiple times. I'm also responsible to prepare the monthly VTrans bill. And that's the largest invoice that we set out. And I'm also in charge of minutes for the board, executive committee, finance committee. I also take attendance. So I know all of you that are here or not here. Unfortunately tonight, Mackenzie is under the weather and she's not here. So I can't introduce her. We are very happy for her to have joined us. Thanks everybody. I'm going to return to taking my minutes. Thank you, Amy. We're sorry. No, I'm sorry not to meet Mackenzie tonight. Because I haven't had the opportunity yet. Since there is no consent agenda, we can move on to approve the minutes of the October 19th, 2022 meeting. Move to approve with any edits. Second. Sandy. Are there any edits for the minutes? Any comments? If not. All those in favor. Say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any abstentions? I am. I was not able to be here. Well, thank you very much. The minutes are accepted. Moving on. We are. Have the opportunity to meet. Fred. Who has often been our. Discusses our audit. And so we move on to the discussion of the FY 22 audit. Okay. Make sure I'm coming through. Okay. Yes. Okay, great. So I think you all have the audit in front of you, or I think it was transmitted to you electronically at least. We met with the executive finance committee a couple of years ago to go through the draft and to go through the report in detail. So I'll give you just a quick overview of what's here and then see if there's any general or specific questions. So as in the past, this is a multi-part document. It's an audit that's done in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards, which really is an audit for any organization. It is also an audit done in accordance with government auditing standards, which are a little bit more stringent requires specific auditors to do the work who have the right credentials and education. And it requires a report to be included that looks at your compliance with laws and regulations and internal control. So that that's above what a normal audit would be of a private company or nonprofit unless they have a single audit. And that's the third level that it is because you expend more than $750,000 in federal funds. This is audit is also done in accordance with federal standards. It's called the Uniform Guidance. And so that adds another level, another report, and requires us to focus on specific major programs, which are your larger federal programs, and look at them in detail to make sure that you've complied with the various rules and regulations for managing those funds and that you have a good system of internal controls over the management of those funds. So there's a second letter in the back that addresses that. The main thing in an audit is the opinion on the financial statements and that's on page one of the report and what in the second paragraph what it tells you is that you prepare and present your financial statements in full conformance with generally accepted accounting principles for governments. So this this is the same standards that would be for your cities and towns because CCRPC is a government. There is one change in accounting this year related to leases. Basically, if there's for any leases and this will affect any of your cities and towns as well either as less or less see any leases greater than a year, even if title doesn't pass to you will now be included on your balance sheets as an asset and or liability so that's that's new. The theory being that if you bought something you'd have an asset liability the fact that you lease it you still have the right to use it. As long as it's a non cancel police and they're, they've been put on. What I typically read when I go into a new town or look at a another financial statement starts on page five and it runs for about eight pages and it's called management's discussion and analysis and it's titled it's written by management. Our responsibility is to make sure that all the information in that in those eight pages is consistent with the audited financials that follow, and they are but it's, it's narrative it talks about who you are. It gives you some information about how the year ended it gives you some information related to your budget and where you're going in the future. So really you can get a real good understanding of what happened in that year and just reading that those eight pages. The traditional financials follow that and start on page 13 with a balance sheet or statement of net position statement of revenue expenses and then a statement of cash flow those are all required statements. In looking at your net position at the end of 22 it's up from the prior year about 60,000 in total. To indicate in the past we break out your net position between that that's related to your participation and the embers which you have no control over and the money you do have a control over and that net position went up to about 756,000 from about 680 a year ago, and that the reasons for that are discussed in the management's discussion and analysis so there's there's reasons why that that went up that way. Following the financials. There's a lot of footnotes that explain again who you are gives you more information on various assets and liabilities. Just discusses a whole range of issues. In the back are a number of schedules some are required to be there, partly to show your the history and trends of the beavers pension, which is, we talked about in the past is a well funded pension. Again the the state's actuaries and consultants and looking at this, even in, you know, then they look at it in a range of possibilities. Even with those ranges, they believe that there would be enough money to pay all municipal employees when when do with with just minor rate adjustments. In Vermont that is a well funded plan and it's for for municipalities and the reason it's well funded is because you pay for it. All the money that goes into this plan is paid for from the from the members from the municipalities the state does not participate in funding this. There are some required schedules related to your indirect cost as a calculation, you came very close this year in terms of hitting that rate. When you don't there's a rollover that can affect future years but you were very close this year in terms of what that rate was in terms of what what was proposed and what was used and what the actual was. And then there's a schedule that the Agency of Commerce and Community Development wants to see in there to see how their money was spent. The last schedule is called the scheduled expenditures of federal awards and that's that's a list of every federal grant that either came indirectly through a state agency or directly from the federal government. And with with their grant number how much you spent any money you passed through the sub recipients. And that's there to make sure that that their grants are covered so they'll the state and the federal look at this this gets submitted to a federal clearinghouse. They're not available for public inspection, but they'll make sure that that the grants they submitted to you are included in the audit. And if not, they'll, but we know they are in the back of the other two letters I alluded to earlier. The first is a report on compliance and control at the financial statement level required by government auditing standards. The second report on compliance and control control on specific grants. This year was the highway planning construction grants to 2205 grants, all of those were included that is that makes a significant portion of the grant funding is about 2.7 million out of the 3.2 million. And so, because, because it was the largest were required to focus on that one. And finally in the back the last item is a summary of auditors results. And that's really where the grant tours and the feds really will look and it really gives them the picture of what happened. And what you'll see is that we had an unmodified opinion as I said on the financial statements we had no material weaknesses no significant deficiencies in internal control at the financial statement level. Compliance at the financial statement level. And then the same thing at the federal awards that were tested we had no material weaknesses no significant deficiencies. We were we were able to issue an unmodified a port on report on compliance. So we had no findings that need to be reported. And because you've done that for multiple years in a row, you get to be deemed a low risk audit T. It's important it indicates to the feds and the state that you have good systems in place to be able to manage federal funds and you have a history of doing that. So it you, you have to have two clean years in a row in order to get that designation, and you continue to have it. So, there's a lot that I've gone through. We as I said we did a lot more detail with with finance and executive committee, but I'm happy to answer any questions if any. Any questions for Fred. Jeff. Madam chair I move that the board accept the audit and compliment the staff on another clean audit. And what I said at the finance committee I'll say before the whole board is the staff is changing expectations. Because for those of you that haven't been around for 20 years, a clean audit wasn't always the case. Right. It's always nice. All right. Second and also agree with Jeff on that one. The staff has been fabulous. Absolutely. All those and is it easier to, you know, do the raise to the hand or say I, you know, given the responses. Anyway, so all those in favor, let's just raise our hands. So it's easier to make sure it looks like the, the, the audit has been accepted. Thank you. Madam chair, if I could, I'd also like to compliment the auditor, the vendor on this. I think it's a good strong relationship and they are credibly thorough. And despite some of the gas be changes and things like that that they have to defend, they do an excellent job. But I agree with you. Thank you, Fred. It's always a good presentation. I always look forward to it. Thank you very much for your time. All right, take care. Have a good rest of the meeting. Thank you. All right. Next up, we have a tip amendment. I guess discussion and then an action required of it for the Windows key Burlington main street bridge. I'll start us off Catherine. Thank you. Christine Ford here. So this would typically have been a consent agenda item but considering that this is a large and significant project we thought it would be good to just bring it to you give you an opportunity to talk about it and ask questions. So, the, the change to the tip is to add, as soon as I start to talk, I can't talk. Is to add the raise grant so add the project, the main street, when you ski River Bridge between Burlington and when you ski to the tip to add the race grand the project was awarded 24.8 million. For those who want the acronym it is rebuilding American infrastructure with sustainability and equity. I can send you that Amy. And so the bridge was or it was awarded 24.8 million. We're adding 1 million this year and 1 million next year to begin design of this project. We have asked Carolyn Coda from V trans if she would attend this meeting and just give us a little bit of kind of what the schedule is and how this is going to unfold I think we're going to have more conversations about the actual design of the project but if it's okay with you will just ask Carolyn to kind of run us through that run us run through this for us. Okay, thank you Christine hi so my name is Carolyn Coda. I am recently been given the job as the structures program manager. I'm managing all the structures at the trans the program. So, we recently as Christine mentioned was awarded the race grant. Now the race grant is 24.8 million dollars. However, we still have more steps to take before we can actually get the grant money. So, step one is we need to have some money in the tip and so that's what the million dollars for the share next year to get that in the tip so that we can start some engineering the with the race grant. It is a 80% federally funded and 10% state funded and then each of the Burlington and Manuski each have to pay 5% share for each of them. All the construction, the construction funds need to be obligated by September 30th 2026. That is not that's only four years from now. A lot of our bridge projects take anywhere from five to 10 years to get construction obligation. So in order to get these funds obligated, we are going to do what is called the design build project. We will put out RFQs and RFPs out to hire a design and a construction company to design and then build a project and this kind of construction tool will allow us to obligate all that construction money in 2026. Our goal is to have it obligated by June of 2026. Now with that said, just, you know, FYI, is that this whole project will need to be in the tip and then up from those spending years from like the construction part of it from like 26 on and that the whole project costs right now we have estimated 46.2 million, where 24.8 million is the race grant. In order to actually physically get the race grant money we have to fill out what is called a NOFA application which is a notice of funding opportunity grant application we just received that a couple weeks ago. We had a kickoff meeting with FHWA yesterday, no, today is Wednesday, Monday, and the application is very complex. It has to be done very carefully. And this actual grant application will be signed by, goes all the way to Washington, D.C. It can take up to a year to actually get that money and get that application, which is fine because we have that time, but we're not allowed to spend. We're not allowed to spend any of the race grants so we can't like AC money from the race grant so we'll be doing some AC with our normal formula funds and our normal, our normal federal funds to at least start the preliminary process. And right now we are in the process of hiring a consulting firm that is going to be our project, our project manager for this project. And we've actually already sent out RFQs to three firms that are already in our otherwise in design build projects. And we had a meeting with the, there's a group, a couple of people from Burlington and Monoski, they have, they meet, I think, every once a month. And we met with them, oh, a couple weeks ago, and they are aware of what we're planning on doing to be involving them in the process of hiring this consulting firm. So we're actually going to have people from these from Burlington, this committee, Burlington and Monoski actually interviewing these three firms so that they're a part of that process of hiring this consulting firm to assist us in putting together the RFQs and the RFPs for this design build project. It's all these funds, the whole project, no matter what happens, all the race grant funds have to be spent by September 30th at 31. So we obligate the project in 26 June, July of 26. And then within those five years, the new bridge has to be in place, everything's all cleaned up and we've spent all the money. And that really for this size project, for this bridge, this is going to be a, it's a tough feat. That's why we're already jumping and getting all our ducks in a row so that we can move speed ahead once we've hired this consultant firm to assist us in the RFQs and the RFPs to go forward and come up with a plan. It's a pretty exciting project. This project, the plan is to do what's called a lateral slide, it's like laterally move the bridge into place. I have no idea how we're going to do it here, but we can do it. So and then, you know, with the traffic and the communities and we're just going to be like, we're going to have this, this consulting firm that we hire. Part of the component of their team is going to have a public outreach that we're already going to start working on our public outreach with Windows Ski and Burlington to make sure that this bridge at the end of the day meets everyone's needs and how we build it meets everyone's needs. So I don't know if you have any questions. I'm happy to answer them. Like I said, it's very new. We can't really do anything. You know, until we have the money in the tip and we can get those funds authorized through our other means, but I'm happy to answer any questions. And if you don't have any questions, that's great to hear. Mr. O'Brien. Yeah, so Caroline and Christine. As the representative, I just got to say, this is fantastic. You know, the bridge has had. I mean, it functions, but we started. I'm going to say 30 years ago, trying to figure out how to get a pedestrian better bike and pedestrian access across the bridge. Hopefully it's coming through. So that's great. Thank you. Yeah, I just noticed that Charlie Baker just put something in the chat about the scoping study. That's out there. So if you haven't had a chance to look at that, at some point you may want to. I'd also at this point like to make a motion to approve the tip amendment. Yeah. All those in favor, raise your hands. I think you're muted, Jeff. Did you have a question? Yeah, we're not going to have discussion. Oh, sure. I don't see Jeff. Oh, there's Jeff. Okay. Yeah, we asked if there was quite a we asked earlier. This is the first time for the first time ever I've actually put my hand up. So that was why it was so unusual. Maybe it's a question for Christine. I don't know. We have in the description of the tip change something about right away. And I was wondering, since this is an existing bridge for 90 years, does design build do something to say that we have to get additional right away or do we have all the right away for the bridge. No. I think one, I mean, there's a, there's right away funds are spent to clear the right away, even if it's not acquired. So it. It. Yeah, it is not to indicate that we need right away. Yeah. It just felt a little unusual for a 90 year old bridge that we already have. Well, what might happen is depending on what we, you know, one of the things with a, what we call a lateral side of a bridge is that we have to build that bridge somewhere out like nearby. And then bring it in. So we may need to acquire some right away in the future. I'm not sure what is actually written Christine, but I mean, that's why I was, that's why I was asking this design bill bring some new right away requirement into this. It doesn't bring in a new rate of requirement. It just brings in, you know, we have to assess the situation. So before we can actually obligate the construction funds, we have to have all our, we have to have a document completed. That's an environmental permit. We would need to have any right away that we would need. We would need to have already acquired that. But we'll know that as soon as we start putting some plans together, we'll know whether we need any additional right away. And then that would be a different authorization actually. I'm not sure how with the tip usually there's a line item for right away. Right, Christine. Yes. So we would if we need right away we would have another line item for that. I haven't seen, I don't know exactly what the towns have for right away through that quarter. Like, you know, and it may just be because we're widening the bridge. Exactly. We're adding, you know, it's going to be one, two, three, four lanes, a bike lane, sidewalks, railing, it's definitely be wider than what we have there now. So, and most and I don't know what the right away is there, whether it's a three rod, four rod, six rod, I don't know at this point. Carolyn, I think that the scoping identifies some right away impacts. Okay. So, but because it is a wider bridge. Yeah, it's not because it's designed built but it's a wider bridge so there is a big, bigger. So we need a wider footprint coming into the point where that's fine. I just, you know, knowing knowing the site there didn't seem like there was a lot of opportunity to expand the right away. Yeah. No, there isn't. I would agree with you. Before we finish the vote then is there any other questions Garrett. Just, I realized this is MPO business so I don't get a vote but I just wanted to toss out a thought that I'm hoping that the bridge can be something other than just a boring interstate highway style, nothing to it bridge. It's two historic communities, particularly close to all the wonderful downtown of Winooski. And I'm just hoping that the bridge and of course it's up to the communities can have something there be something that's aesthetically pleasing as well. Thanks. And I agree with you Garrett that is why we're bringing the communities in so early in the process so that when we come up with a concept of bridge design that it brings the aesthetics and different things to this bridge so that it fits into the community. It will not be an interstate type bridge. I, you know, there is some historic components to this whole project. And that comes, that's where the NEPA document comes into play because it is a historic bridge. It's been deemed historic. So they're going to be features like I don't have the, the, the scoping report in front of me but I believe they were they were showing concrete railing and, and different things that kind of go with what what's there now to kind of keep that historic integrity. Down the road a lot of times a lot of the bridges that we do here in the state that are similar to the to the Burlington Winooski one where you have the concrete railing. What we do when we put in a new bridge we just a concrete railing to kind of keep in with that historic nature of that structure. So, I think that the communities, you know, this is their opportunity to really have a, have a say and, and help help us design, you know, help us the consultant design a bridge that is going to be something that will be there for over 100 years again. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments then before we vote. Not then as Garrett has said this is an MPO vote so all those in favor raise your hands. And can you see them all Amy to get it right. Thank you. The motion passes. One little comment about it. I'm sorry. Yes. So I'm Bruce Wilson I live in, I live in the Winooski. And I do like the course I want the bridge to be rebuilt. And I would like to add some type of something special for a bridge that's 99 years old on my organization, which I'm an executive director of art so wonderful. If you notice underneath the bridge we put the mosaic I mean we put a mural underneath the bridge. It's going to be on the, it's going to be a mosaic on the river walk to our art so wonderful so I'm hopeful that one of my, leave me on this can be a part of it but you know that's down the road but. That is on the road but I will, I will, I'm going to write type your name down Bruce Wilson. And you are, and who are you affiliated with? I mean, I'm the executive director of art so wonderful. So wonderful. So wonderful. And we've been around since 2000 and three actually all the murals and brothers and more 60% of murals and brothers into our program. Okay. Okay, so we can talk about it later but I know but I think that but this is this is great because this is what we want right so be on the lookout for those those public meetings. I'm not going to be on the road but I will make sure that I'll discuss. I'll give your name to my project manager or the trans project manager so that we can reach out to you in the future. Thank you. You're welcome, Bruce. Thank you. Thank you for your discussion and thank you everyone for their comments. But it's nice that the, you know, the bridges now have been put into the tip. Thank you. Moving on. We have a discussion on the national TV infrastructure plan, which is also be trans. Good, good evening everyone. So prior to handing things over to leave we have Patrick Murphy, the V trans sustainability innovations project manager, just wanted to remind our members that we asked Patrick to come tonight, sort of give us an overview of EV infrastructure planning after last month's discussions that we had about various levels of EV charging at parking rides. Patrick also presented at our attack meeting earlier this month, and we had a good discussion about how the state's prioritizing, you know, planned EV infrastructure investments. So we're looking forward to tonight's discussion as well. And I'll hand it over to Patrick now. Great. Thanks so much, Marshall. And appreciate the invitation to come speak with you all about some of our plans in the works. And so happy to also take some, some feedback on that. Can you see this slide. Okay. Yes. Great. And apologies to those who've already heard this a couple weeks ago. I'll try and run through it as quick as possible so we can get to questions. But this all flows from our climate action plan, which was adopted about a year ago, and has specific. Specific requirements for our missions reductions through the global warming Solutions Act and then out of that. Some modeling was done to come to these targets for where we need to be with electric vehicle registrations by 2025 and 2030. So we have some ambitious numbers to meet 27,000 in just a few years and 126,000 vehicles registered by 2030. So there are a number of recommendations within the climate action plan and I'll just focus in on the charging investment, although we have many other initiatives going on to help support EV adoption throughout the state. It gives you a sense of where we are right now as of July 2022. We have about 7500 plug in electric vehicles, and just over half of those, all electric vehicles, the other plug in hybrids. This also gives you a sense that many of those registrations are right here in Chittenden County. So I don't want to assume too much knowledge in the part of everyone here. So forgive me for kind of running through just the basics because I think it is important that that there's sort of a level set here. The difference is between the types of charging. So there's level one charging was essentially an outlet in the wall there are some more sophisticated level one charging applications now that allow for reporting that that allow for payment. So these are things that maybe should be explored in the context of a park and rides. Level two charging is 240 volt outlet. These are many of the public stations that you probably have seen. And this is the equivalent of what you need for maybe a major appliance like a refrigerator or a dryer. And the charging times here are a little bit faster and certainly there's variation within level one and level two charging. And then you have DC fast charges. Some people refer to them as level three charges. And this is where you have really fast charging. So a vehicle might be charged in in as as few as 30 to 40 minutes if you're starting from basically empty. This gives you a sense better sense hopefully of the time that it actually takes to go from no charge to to fully charged. So obviously, there's a lot more time with the level one, some more time with level two you're looking at about six to eight hours maybe for many vehicles out now and then the very fast charging that we're talking about in the context of the federal funds are these 150 kilowatt stations, which as you can see is about 25 minutes to charge. And this all depends upon the vehicle itself, and then also what are the conditions in which you're charging. So a colder colder day is going to be different and slower than the than an average summer day. And this is a really important slide I think and because it shows kind of what are the different applications for these different types of charging. So when you're thinking about the very fast charging it's, it's meant to serve the traveling public along interstate corridors. But it's meant to be closer sort of reflect more reflective of a gas station model where you're trying to get as much charge as possible as quickly as possible. There are other ways to charge though of course most charging is expected to happen at home 80% of the charging is expected to take place at home that's where it's more efficient from a grid perspective it's also where it's cost effective from the consumer perspective. In most cases, public charging whether it's level, a two or three is going to be more expensive and especially level three so you can look at how the different types of charging works with what are you trying to do during throughout the day. If you're looking at a park and ride scenario, you're more likely to see some benefit here in this work transit parking airport parking. When you're going to be parked for an extended period of time for the eight hours, it makes more sense to have level two charging, because you'll have, and in some cases level one, you're not always going to be at zero charge. And so you may only need a certain amount over an extended period of time. But with very fast charging, you're going to expect to be around there, you're not just going to leave the car and and then be off for several hours, because then you have some charges potentially. If you overstay your time at a particular station. And we can go back to this later if there are more questions. It's also important to understand how much these different stations costs so level one is as you'd expect much cheaper level to charging, especially when you get into public charging can can be quite expensive. Probably on average about 20,000 now and then DC fast charging is very expensive and getting more so with all the funds that are coming to every single state. And so there's going to be increased demand for level three charging at the same point that we have some global situations that are actually creating supply issues. That's all going to drive up the cost of fast charging. And the same is true for operating costs as much more expensive to operate a fast charger than is a level one or two charge. The way it's been leading in in in the country really we have more stations per capita than elsewhere in the country. We have of course fewer capital but that's beside the point. The investments we've made have started back in 2014 are sort of pale in comparison now to the money that's available both from state general funds and all the federal funds that that have been passed through the I I J last year and and then also some potential areas for funding through the inflation reduction act. We did launch a pilot last year with a million dollars, which is fully subscribed that extended home charging access to multi unit dwellings. Because as I said it's really important that that people have access to home charging. It's, it's more efficient for the grid and it's more affordable for the people who are who are charging at home. This is a critical piece that we have to continue to work on. So through that pot of fun, funding, we were able to extend home charging to more than 6000 housing units affordable housing units in multiple counties and including Chittenden County. The state budget this year set aside six and a quarter million dollars for fast charging along highway corridors. For a quarter of that is expected to come from the nevy plan the national electric vehicle infrastructure program. And then the other two million is coming actually from ARPA funds that were appropriated. And then there was $10 million it was a set aside for community charging so moving off the corridors into downtown and different attractions. Continuing to build out the home charging access for people living in rental situations and and multi unit dwellings. And also workplace charging is another critical piece to creating this ecosystem that supports greater adoption. So these are the buckets of funding that will become available at some point next year. After the programs are designed. This is a program that will be launched by the Department of Housing and Community Development. And so I would encourage folks in municipalities to to look at these pots of funding as potentially good sources for both workplace and and community amenities. So the nevy program is fairly prescriptive. And we for months submitted a charging plan to federal highways administration. Back in July and had our plan approved in September. There was not a lot of time to do significant public outreach and it didn't. But we did do outreach to different all kinds of different entities that we were able to. We weren't able to do significant outreach given the time that timeframe that we had to get the state plans in but we do plan to do a lot more over the next year. The other issue is just how highly prescribes the program is so that even if we were to take feedback from the public. It couldn't necessarily be reflected immediately in the initial plan so we hope to get more feedback from the public over the next year and to do that in concert with the carbon reduction program which is another pot of federally funded formula funds which can be used for EV charging but it can also be used for a much broader set of projects which reduce carbon in communities. So that's sort of where we are now we still have we're waiting on guidance for the final program rules which include minimum standards for equipment how there's going to be waivers from some of their requirements and then we've yet to hear more information yet from FHWA on the different competitive grant programs that may become available soon. I will say, just these requirements, the four minimum of four 150 kilowatt fast charging stations is quite significant. It may be up to a million dollars or more for each location. And so that means that in the context of having about $21 million over five years we really have to make some good choices about where to deploy this infrastructure. So we can only deploy these along what's been designated as a alternative fuel carter by FHWA. This gives you a sense of where we have carters designated so I-89, most of I-91 and some parts of the southern state. But you know we've got some more work to do to kind of build out more of the carters. So we ran an analysis to figure out where we would have to locate charging according to the program rules in order to be certified is fully built out. We felt that this was important because after you're certified as fully built out by the federal government then you have more flexibility in the use of funds. So it may be that we don't necessarily need to locate four chargers in a location but we can be a little bit more strategic and reflective of what makes sense for Vermont. I would also point out the FHW guidance about where these should be located in the context of any given community that we need to be considering what people can access where other vehicle is charging, even though it's for a short period of time, maybe 20, 30, 40 minutes. And that includes things like community amenities access, basic access to restrooms and good lighting sheltered places, restaurants, convenience stores. Those all make for better locations because you can do a few things while you wait for the charging to be complete. So we came to those sort of 15 locations through a number of different layers in our mapping analyses, including traffic volumes to as a stand in for potential demand. Travel services, employment density, the housing density, how many multifamily housing units are within a particular place. We looked at environmental justice factors and demographics of the communities in which these will be located. And, you know, then we looked at does the site have access to three phase power, which is required for most applications of this level. And then the distance requirements for the program. Is it within 50 miles of the next charger and within a mile of the designated corridor. So we ran all these analyses and that's how we got to our 15 locations. I should say that these locations are just general. What we'll do is we'll bundle some low demand sites with higher demand sites, and we'll ask EV charging providers to build out in those general vicinity and the general vicinity of these locations it doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, that what's been designated on the map is absolutely the EV charging stations will be located. There will have to be a process after contracting is complete to be able to actually work with site owners, post site agreements and so that's a very messy and lengthy process that will have to be run through to be able to hone in on what the specific sites are. But over the next several months we'll be working to upgrade six of those locations we talked about with ARPA funds. Once the final rules from the nevy program are known, we'll be able to issue RFPs for the further build out of the other nine or 10 locations. And then, as I said, we'll continue to conduct the public engagement for both the nevy and the carbon reduction programs. And that will be an iterative process we need to submit an annual plan and and these will continue to change based on the input that we get from from all kinds of folks. So I'll leave it there. I know there, there weren't any strong opinions about this so, but if you do have questions I'm happy to answer them. I have one. Bart has his hand up. You know, thanks. Yeah, this is barred. Thanks so much for the presentation I've serviced a sequence and I'll try to keep this short. So, if I understand, first, thanks so much for doing this, because I really appreciate the idea of a plan full thinking about charging stations. First, a reality check so if I understand this charging infrastructure. The funding is basically available from the electrical line on site to the vehicle right it's like right there. Is that correct. Yeah, so there, there may be different ways that that this happens in. There are some eligible expenses that are just the the charging station itself. So there, there are possibilities and more rural locations say if there weren't three phase power that battery storage and renewable energy options are are eligible expenses. And so, and then upgrade work that needs to be done and make ready work will will also be eligible. So, you know, what we're finding isn't in most places throughout Vermont. We will have to upgrade each site, and that might cost anywhere between 60 85,000 dollars and, and that's going to lead into all kinds of delays based on the supply issues that we're seeing not just with EV charging stations but also with transformers with switch gear and, you know, so that foreshadows my broader question which is truly about the electrical grid. So, one thing, you know, there's enough power on site from here to here from 100 feet away or 20 feet away from to the site. Well correctly, previous conversations at this commission talked about some elements of the Vermont electrical power grid being close to capacity already and transitioning a large number of vehicles from gas with electricity would put pressure on the grid that can currently be sustained and would have to result in significant infrastructure improvements to the electrical grid itself. And so that's just in the back of my mind I don't know if you have any comments on that. I'm not so specific to presumably those areas along the interstate where the infrastructure tends to be more developed. But if you have any more comments about the electrical grid capacity itself in terms of supporting a significant increase in electrical vehicles. Sure. So, as I showed in one of the slides we're only at 7500 vehicles we need of course to rapidly increase those numbers. But in conversations that I've had the public service department, there isn't a concern that we're going to dramatically increase the loads such that we'll begin to be an issue with our electrical grid for some many number of years. And so Vermont is in a different position, for example, than some places in California and elsewhere. In terms of the demands placed on the system, particularly as people are largely charging at home, these can be kind of managed in a way so that you're not hitting your peak all the time. There's not really a concern right now at this point. And at the same time, there's all kinds of other efforts that will be running in parallel with this to make sure that it doesn't become an issue in the future so that there are funds out there that will help support the building of a more resilient electrical grid as well. That's great. Thank you so Charlie. It strikes me, we want to talk to the public service commission again because we have two different parts of state government responsible different parts and make sure we're only one region, but to connect those moving because that's not entirely consistent with my memory of our discussions in this group before and I welcome the opportunity to be disabused of my disillusion about the capacity of the grid statewide. But I think there's where the two parts between the local charging station actually the grid itself is something that we should pay attention to. Not, you know, I don't mean this to be, you know, confronted to you Patrick, but it really is sort of a bigger picture right and I think it merits some additional scrutiny. My quick response is that typically when we're looking at transmission and distribution grid constraints. That's because there is a supply issue and oversupply it's not because there's over demand for the electricity. And there's too much renewable energy coming on the grid from from distributed solar generation for instance. And so you know the the increased demand from DC fast charging for instance actually may help in some specific geographic locations. I don't know if that response helps at all. No, totally get it. I just would like to see how that's all playing out in projections into the future between generation distribution and fan. Because it strikes me all of those things are dynamic. Over time. Thank you, Garrett. I'll add my thanks to what Bart said. And also presume that your nobody has strong feelings on this comment was made in jest. Because there are some of us who do. One, but actually, the main point is, I don't see that it makes any sense for the state or federal money to be spend on level one charging. That is truly only useful, possibly at work, but mostly at home where you have long time to do the charging. I'm a level one charger where sitting there for two hours get you 15 miles doesn't really help anybody a whole lot. So I would really like to see the excuse me state and federal money focused wherever possible on level three. If it's not possible, then level two, and then leave the level one if towns have some money to put in some level one charging. That's something the towns can afford that will at least be helpful. But the part that they can't do is, you know, putting in a whole bunch of level three, which is what people really want. They want to be able to pull in and get a reasonable amount of charge in an hour and drive away. Especially if you've got a parking ride with 100 cars in it, and there are four or six slots. You know, I'm not sure how that really works out. The other smaller pieces is that I would hope that whenever these charging stations are put in or upgraded that there would be some ability for charging e-bikes and e-scooters. That's generally 120 volt and not a amperage so fairly inexpensive, but we want to encourage the use of those vehicles. Thank you. Sure. So I'd like to just respond to a couple of things there. The federal government won't be funding any sort of level one charging. The state does allow potentially for level one charging to be funded. In our last round that I mentioned about the pilot for multi-unit dwellings, there was a desire to leave that option open in the case that site constraints may not have been able to allow for a level two application. There are also, as I said, some resource constraints. So level one charging is cheaper than level two charging and there may be reasons to allow for that. I think the main reason with level one charging is thinking about it differently. So charging is not the same as filling up at the pump. So level one charging, if you have a car parked for a number of hours, it's helpful to think about how many other things can be done at that time. You're not waiting on that charging because it's just happening in the background. The speaker's last point, you know, that does help, in fact, with the surge in demand. If you're able to spread charging out over a lengthier amount of time, you're not seeing those peaks and dips and peaks again. You're having more of a steady amount of charging throughout the day and that does help with real issues. So I would encourage people to think about, you know, it's similar to like if you were to take a bus from Burlington to Montpelier, say, it's going to take you more time. It's going to take you more time to walk to and from the bus stop. It's going to take you more time on the bus because of all the stops that have to be made. But it is going to be cheaper than driving. You are going to see more benefits to your own health, hopefully, because you're walking, and then you're going to, you're going to be able to do things with your time while you're on the bus. And so the same idea applies to, you know, charging over a longer period of time with level two, or level one charging, that you can do things while that's taking place. So it's, I wouldn't, I wouldn't put level three sort of at the top of the hierarchy, like do this first in every case, no matter what. It has certain applications that it's good for. But in other applications, a level two can do just fine. And in fact, in other applications, a level one may be helpful as well, especially when you're looking at the situation of just finite public resources. Thank you. Yeah, sort of as a follow up on, and this question reflects my ignorance of the EV world. Great presentation. Thank you. I get the home charging thing, plug in, and that cost is reflected in your monthly electric utility bill. What I don't understand is the funding for public places, the interstate, the mall, schools, the town hall. Who pays for that? I mean, I don't think you're putting your credit card. How is that all financing structure work subsidized? And so the charging that the agency of transportation is deploying or will be deploying. And most of the charging that the agency of commerce and community development has deployed since 2014 has all been, or has mostly been paid charging. So I think it's important for systems to be able to receive payment, the credit card, or so, or by other means with a mobile phone app or something like that. But most applications and now all applications are going to be paid. So it's, you know, there is, there's obviously the public subsidy to install these and in part to operate these, but it is the expectation that people are paying for the electricity that's going into their vehicles and this is paying back that initial investment. So I hope that answers the question. There's also, you know, we have in the past, VTrans has in the past invested in just the level one charging at parking rides where nobody paid and the result in some instances were not electric vehicles parking there, but campers and others. And so that's, we've sort of walked back from that. But as I said, there are applications that can help prevent that abuse by allowing for payment. And that could be a good fit in the future for parking rides. Thank you. I look forward to learning more about this world myself. Sure. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions. Thank you very much for the presentation. It really was quite interesting then and good to know for what we need to do for the future. Sure. And if anybody has follow up questions feel free to reach out and we're happy to take any feedback. Thank you again. Sure. Next on the agenda is a discussion with the action item to on the comprehensive economic development plan. So yeah, Catherine, I think first we're going to do just a quick update on the sets project. And then I think we'll have some separate discussion on the regional priority project list after that. I just want to note from the outset that the regional priority project list actual list was not in your packet. Charlie and I had a bit of a miscommunication about that list. And I have a PDF to show you folks tonight. That we can send our discussion around Charlie do you have anything to add to that. I can't see you so I'm assuming not. Nelson. All right. I just wanted to provide a quick status update on the sets project. We're going to talk a little bit about our progress on this project back in July. It was supposed to be wrapping up around this time. But we've received an extension and I'm going to talk a little bit about why. So we'll tonight we'll just do a quick review of the West Central Vermont sets project and who we're partnering with to complete that project. We'll discuss why we've asked for and receive the project extension. And then we'll review our revised project timeline. The U. S. D. says it's a it's a strategy driven plan for regional economic development. The USDA sets the requirements of what needs to be in a sets. Chittin County currently has its own sense it is supplement for of the Ecos plan. This time around, we're writing a sets with some partners. We're writing a sets with the regional planning commissions and the regional development corporations. So Central Vermont, the Washington County and parts of Orange County area. The Addison County and Rutland County as well. Back in the back in July, Regina talked about her work to date. She reviewed the key findings of the sets itself because we had released a first draft at that time back in early June. And she reviewed, reviewed goals and actions with you and talked about how we're going to continue integrating our sets into the Ecos plan. And I'm going to review real quick those sets goals again, they're in section four of the draft sets. And so after doing, you know, community outreach over a course of about a year and a half we settle on six key goals. And there are specific actions under each of these goals. We have a goal to attract new workers and expand labor force. We have a specific equity goal focused on ensuring that all communities are a part of our economic planning and actions within our region. You have a business development job creation goal or workforce development employee retention goal, infrastructure resilience and a quality of life goal. The project status update itself. So we completed the first draft of the sets back in June. You folks should all have received an email about that that says and received a solicitation to provide feedback. We kept the sets available for feedback through late August, we ended up having about 20 to 25 people provide feedback across the four County areas and not not a ton of feedback. Those that did provide feedback provided a lot of feedback though. You know we received, you know, I don't know Dana well over well over 150 individual comments or so. And probably, you know, 20 to 25, 10 to 15 pretty long emails. Yes. So the, the, yeah, the folks that did review the sets did a very thorough job. We had expected to wrap up this project at the end of September and get the sets prepared for adoption by all our boards. This fall or at the latest really early winter. But instead, you know, our partners and I are partners and I are partners in ourselves here at CCRPC decided to pursue an extension of the project. We asked for a six month extension and we received it actually about a nine month extension. We asked for that extension frozen. Really not cooperating here tonight. So apologies. At least you did Charlie. Well, it happened earlier in the training session to when I was presenting. Let me, I will see. I don't know the Taylor had a lot more to do on the sets. But yeah, who's probably going to come out and come back in. So yeah, Catherine, I don't know if you want to wait for that or I can start on the equity update. Yeah, you want to reboot just to do the project. Yeah, sorry. Sorry, just popped in my office. So we'll come back out into review their project priority list. Catherine, do you want me to move on to the equity? Well, yeah, well, he takes care of that because we have, you know, it's better for him to finish the sets and then talk about his priority list. So you might as well start the equity update because that's also a discussion and, and then at the end of that, we have an action item to appoint members to the equity advisory committee. Yeah, so in your packet, you have the summary of the October 27th equity advisory committee meeting. And I should really start off this conversation by introducing one of our new staff and Nelson stoner who I see at the bottom of my screen I don't know where she is on your screen. But please say hi and introduce yourself to the group and Nelson. Oops. We are having all kinds of technology issues. You hear me now. Yeah. Yeah, all kinds of tech issues tonight huh. Hi everybody. My name is Ann Nelson, I'm thrilled to be in this position. I'm from Charlottesville, Virginia, went to grad school there for urban planning studied equitable community and moved up here in August and yeah I'm thrilled to be working with everybody and get into some more equity work moving forward. Yeah so, and just for clarity sake, and Nelson is kind of two first names. I think she said when she first interviewed with us she's from the south. We're two names. We'll have to get used to that. So, and Nelson is what she goes by and and really and the fact that she moved up here right at the same time that we were trying to hire was just great, great coincidence and we were very fortunate to find her so thank you for joining us and Nelson. And actually, I think she attended this equity advisory committee, even before she officially started working so she kind of jumped right in with both feet. And Dana already has a question Dana. Um, I just wanted to backtrack a little bit on Taylor's presentation on the set. Yeah we're going to come back to it. Okay. I'm sorry. Sorry I was just trying to buy this is me singing and dancing while Taylor pulls up his stuff. Okay I just had some comments on the equity part of the sets but we can go back to that. Yeah, we'll finish that yes. Yeah. So I'll at least. Oh, alright we're back to that Taylor you want to. You tell me sorry. Yeah, that's fine I just introduced and Nelson will go back to the sets work. That sounds good. Thanks. I'm in the office on a hard wire connection, and I've been voted twice in this meeting already so I'm not sure what's up. I'm not sure how far I got before I froze. You were starting to talk about staff turnover, or why you had asked for an extension. Got it. Thank you Catherine. So extension requests, there was substantial staff turnover and a lot of a lot of our partners central one RPC lost their executive director and had lost other staff previously in the spring. Regina obviously left our organization. There was staff turnover GBC. There was staff turnover turnover, but when RPC. And so, you know, a lot of a lot of the sub parts of the sets have been delegated to a lot of our partners. And we were having trouble kind of putting the entire sets together, even though we had a first draft done we were having we were having trouble completing the project. One part we were in particularly having trouble completing was a dashboard an online dashboard with indicators that will accompany the sets and live online and kind of show progress positive and negative against some of our, our measures we've included in the sets. So we need some additional time. Some additional coordination with some of our boards was also needed. Some of our boards didn't really look at that draft sets in depth until August instead of June and July. There was some concern, particularly around some language related to act 250 in the draft sets that we're working through with our partners. So we needed some more time to have that discussion. And lastly, you know, a major component of the sets was to do outreach with underrepresented communities. We had always planned to do that with a consultant guiding us. And we had a lot of difficulty contracting with a consultant to help us with that work. We actually took a year longer to find a consultant to help us with that work than we originally anticipated. Luckily, we were able to secure a contract over my professionals of color network but that wasn't until April of 2022. And so their specific outreach effort needed to take some time to complete and was not completed in time to release that first sets draft sets in June. And so we felt like in fully incorporating their work and their recommendations from their outreach efforts. We wanted to make sure that we did that in a sufficient manner. And we wanted to allow the general public to provide feedback on on the recommendations that they came up with. That'll be included in the second draft. Any questions on on our extension request and the reasons why we've we've we asked for it. Okay. So the second draft itself we released to the general public on November 1 2022. The major change between the drafts being the addition of a specific equity goal and related actions. Again, that's based on the engagement work done by Vermont professionals with color network specifically with BIPOC business owners. With the release of the second draft here in Chittenden County anyways we've released. We're really focusing our additional outreach efforts on that equity goal and action. And also, we want to provide a chance for our, you know, our nascent equity advisory committee to take a look at the full draft and provide an evaluation of if we've sufficiently addressed equity within the sets. And so the EAC is going to look at the draft here in November and December. We're also contracting with the Vermont professionals with color network again to provide them with some some time to review the full draft of the sets. And hopefully we're going to replicate that work also with Vermont Racial Justice Alliance. Other regions are are kind of varying their own outreach efforts over the course of the next month. Some are going back out to the general public summer just focusing on coordinating with their boards but we're really focusing our outreach here in Chittenden County. On on equity and working with a few specific organizations. In terms of our revised timeline. We're going to complete our outreach efforts here in mid December. We hope to incorporate or review those comments we've received in general public with our partners in early to mid December or sorry early to mid January 2023. We hope to complete edits to this second draft by February 2023. And then hopefully have this sets to you to adopt in March 2023. That's the sets itself will come to you with a recommendation from the long-range planning committee from the equity advisory committee hopefully and also from PAC those three subcommittees will be reviewing the document or already have reviewed at least the second draft of the document. Hold up, hold up, hold up. Can we go back. Yeah, so project status. Second draft. And so this information in coordination that you just presented. Like concentrating outreach. As you come up who helped you put this together. In terms of how we decided to conduct outreach with the second draft. Yeah, we'll help you put the words together or the language or how it's going to work related to the equity goals and actions. And so most of those. The equity goal itself is something that the seven or sorry, the eight partner organizations came up with the actions underneath that equity goal mostly came from recommendations from the Vermont professionals of color network. Yes. I don't, I don't think it's the wrong one about like, see, see, look over it and Anna Nelson, you know, before we actually go over the whole thing. That will happen. Yes, we're planning on that to happen. Yes. Thank you very much. If any of you are interested in looking at the second draft of the sets yourselves. You can find it in two different locations. The first location is on West Central, West Central vt.org and find a PDF of the second draft there. You can also find a second draft of the sets by clicking on this link to convey. Conveyo is a platform that allows folks to actually submit comments on the draft within the draft itself. I find that very helpful. You can also email info at West Central Vermont dot org if you have any specific comments. So for the general public to provide comments is December 9, 2022. Any questions on the seds or the direction the seds moving forward. Okay. Sorry Catherine Dana did you have something you wanted to add in there or, or did. I didn't know if we were to get Taylor back and he just said everything I was going to say except dinner. The one thing I will say is that it does, you know, we're trying to move through this. You know, if we need to take another month or something, I think we can do that. But so I think we'll just all try to be respectful as we go through the review process and yes Bruce we I'm hoping that we can get at least some of the members to take a look at it. You know, we're working on getting an email out to the equity advisory committee tomorrow. Related to the sets, you know, one of the actions of the seds or the draft sets is that the sets partners are going to support and annually update regional priority project lists. Charlie, this is where I'm going to hand it off to you to explain a bit about the regional priority project list themselves. I can bring up the project list. So you may remember this from last year. So the Department of Economic Development has been requiring the regional development corporations in our case, the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation GBIC to develop a list of priority economic development projects. And, and they came up with a scoring rubric. Our staff and GBIC staff review these, you know, we did some outreach to our communities to see about some of these projects. I think, and is that covering a tailor. So this is this is a list and GBIC and the RPCs are supposed to give some sort of blessing to this and this is also kind of the project list that is going to be attached to our seds. Is that right Taylor I have that. Yeah, so questions on this or process. Okay, I'll tell her actually review the list with you. And sure, you're probably gonna have to zoom in because Yeah, you tell me you tell me how far I need to zoom in and and how you want me to navigate the list please speak up folks. So I can I can zoom in I can zoom in a little bit further at that house, at least at the project titles there you go. So GB this is really GBICs baby GBIC does a solicitation to municipalities. And I think to know their constituency to submit applications to be on this priority project list. We help them score the submitted projects against the rubric that's provided by the agency of commerce community development. Scoring it really is related to project readiness. And how many jobs are going to be created by the project, the salaries of those jobs the anticipated benefits of those jobs. And, and so I'll review the top 10 projects are listed a little bit longer but really a CCD is interested in the top 10. Our first rank project is the Manuski main street project. It's mostly fully funded but we wanted to keep them on the list because one at rank number one last year and also there might be some opportunities to fill some some funding gaps there. Heinsberg waste or water supply project. This is an upgrade to their existing well and I believe some additional distribution infrastructure also almost fully funded. But there is a bit of a gap so we wanted to keep it on our list. This is the Trader Lane which is a new road in Tafts Corners would open up quite a bit of land there to new development is number three. The Burlington South End Transit Center parking garage housing childcare this is kind of the, the, the Hula city cooperative project on Lakeside Avenue rakes number four. Number five is a municipal parking lot or parking garage excuse me, we're related to a hotel and residential condominium project in Manuski. And number six is the rail yard enterprise project so the development of a new road between Battery Street and Pine Street connecting those two areas. Number seven is up at Bolton Valley Resort, a, a wastewater project. It's to upgrade the existing wastewater system which right now does not have any redundancy within it. And which is a major concern of the resort. I believe I'm at number sorry, am I number eight or number nine. I'm going to head to eight number eight. I'm at number eight. And that's the Essex. I should say really Essex Junction train station not Essex train station in the city of Essex Junction. Upgrading the existing water system which right now does not have any redundancy within it. And which is a major concern of the resort. I believe I'm at number, sorry, am I number eight or number nine. Upgrading the Amtrak station. Number nine is community wastewater project in Westford. Again, almost fully funded but there is a gap in funding. And then 10 actually we have a tie between the community sailing center and some improvements to their, they'd like to install a new pier and install some new infrastructure to ease. And ease actually putting boats into the water. And that's tied with redevelopment of the existing VFW site on South Winooski Avenue of Burlington. I'm tearing down that building and building a new mixed use building commercial in the first story that will have some nonprofits, and then housing above some of which will be dedicated to veterans housing. There are a few other projects that were submitted that did not make the top 10 list Richmond sewer extension. I can talk to you about why, if you'd like, multi generational recreational center in Colchester, a new building for petrocliffs in Burlington, Perkins peer redevelopment and also some improvements to the Essex experience and in Essex Center. Dana, go ahead. I'm just curious about the ranking process how did you rank these in terms of priorities. How did that process happen. GBIC staff and CCRPC staff sat down and reviewed the criteria provided by a CCD and scored the projects based on those criteria Dana that's really what happened. Can you zoom in a little bit Taylor to the just the criteria so we have a sense of what the criteria and there's, there's some quantitative scales attached to each of these. The purpose of the project itself. The project timeline, obviously, you know, favoring those projects that are essentially shovel ready versus those that are that are not the experience of the principle itself. The regional need for the project. Project cost and if there's funding gaps identified. And then we get into job creation. How many jobs is the project going to create according to the applicant. What are the quality of the benefits packages and what are the quality of the wages compared to the region. And that provides us with a total score. Are there any other questions for Taylor on this, the rankings and the process. They're just running about 25 minutes. Yeah, and I think we'd welcome any comments about how to improve this process that it always feels a little clunky to us. A lot of these projects we have been involved with at some level, you know we might have worked with the town on some planning efforts or things. But yeah, I think at this point we're looking for I guess at least a motion to accept this list. And hope it's okay and you have and take any suggestions for how to improve this and subsequent iterations. I'll make a motion to approve the list. I'll second that. All those in favor. Well, I can't see everybody. Raise their hand for I. It appears that the motion passes. I guess I should always ask if there's any. Any nose. Always good. Can I ask one more question Catherine? I saw Garrett had his hand up to certain. Yeah, we have more questions. Charlie. Do we update this list every year. Yeah. Okay. It would. Maybe there should be like a little working group at the RPC to understand what GBIC is doing and what our partners are doing so that it doesn't come as a once in a year, spring it on as type of thing because I mean, I wasn't prepared to say no to anything, but I would want to go back to my community and say, why haven't we put something on this list? Yeah. And that kind of thing, or tried to get something on the list because I noticed that my community, which is show burn now folks, not Essex, didn't have any projects on the list. So maybe if we kind of put a reminder at the September board meeting or something. And have a, you know, kind of look at it for the couple months. Yeah, because, you know, we'd look at it with GBIC, typically in October. Yeah, isn't there two sets though that we have project list for, or don't we have one for our own Chittenden County one. Well, yeah, our current said is just for Chittenden County. I believe these projects are probably a subset of what was on that list. And then hopefully sometime, you know, early next year we'll have this new multi county said that we're. Okay. And these lists will be part of that as well. I just remember the first time we did a sense for Chittenden County and the feeding frenzy that happened around beginning projects on the list. It took us a while to weed that list out. Yeah. And it's hard to react as board members with everything baked in. Yeah, without understanding, I mean, I understand Dana's question. It was a good one. It's always good to be somewhat inclusive on something that's as important as this because this gives us the opportunity for EDA funding for projects that we don't ordinarily get through the MPO or transportation process. And sometimes the communities need a little bit of nudging to get their thought processes going on these things. Yeah, fair enough. And the other the other funding source that's going on right now, Jeff that the Department of Economic Development is using this for within Vermont is that the legislature gave them what some some number of millions you may be more familiar with it than I am. But they've got 20 something million dollars to invest in economic development. They've finished the CIP COVID grant program and now we're going on to part two. So, there's so many things that are happening now between the COVID money, SEDS money, MPO, RPC stuff that the normal thing for a member and I mean I've been around this maybe longer than a lot of people on the board in my head spinning. It is. Yeah, welcome. Yeah, with staff is typically often trying to protect the board, but yes, welcome to our and and I'm looking at this position us as board members to be helpful. Yeah, staff, so that we don't have even more staff turnover because we wear people out. Thank you. I appreciate that very much and yeah, we'll try to just improve on this process it could it could definitely be improved on and opened up and yeah the other and just and Jeff as you're listing off all those like funding avenues the other one, the other one that this gets used for is the northern borders regional commission. So, there's another one added to that mix. Absolutely and that's, that's, you know, USDA funding unfortunately we're losing the senior one of the senior members on the appropriations committee but still that should be that still should be something that's been very kind to northern New York, northern Vermont, northern New Hampshire and upstate me. Yep, absolutely. I just put in the chat that that a CCD program that was, I think it's the community revitalization program to recovery revitalization program. And so, if folks have questions about that specific program, it's mostly aimed at private business but it can be used for municipal water and wastewater projects. If you have questions, be sure to let us know. And while we're talking about funding just an FYI that municipal planning grants are due on December 1. So your municipal planning commissions and select words may be talking about what to apply for here in the next couple weeks and throw in the revolving fund for water and wastewater and you've got the. Yeah, what your effective. Yeah. Thank you. You still have a question. Yeah, I was raising my hand about I thank you though. Oh, okay. Well, thank you. Thank you, Taylor. Tyler for everything and we'll move on now to the equity. So, I already introduced and Nelson so glad you got to meet her in your packet under this topic is the kind of the meeting notes, and not exactly minutes, but kind of hopefully you kind of get some sense of the conversation that happened at the equity advisory committee on October 27. And, you know, that's that was a second meeting of the equity advisory committee. So there's really kind of a lot of learning going on I think you know we're all trying to listen we're trying to listen to the members I think the members are trying to understand our work. And so we're still in that. I know somewhere between storming and forming stage. But, but the conversations have been good a lot of open communications going on. And the other thing I'll say about and Nelson is she's been taking all the notes, or she's assembled all of the ideas for the last from the last year and a half of conversations. And started to kind of like meld that into some sort of work plan, you know, or action list. It's got a lot of things on it right now so cool, you know, kind of be trying to vet that. And, you know, there's there's work we need to do internally as an organization and then there's just relationship building in the community. And that's a very broad summary of kind of internal external. There's a lot more detail so I guess I'll just end my commentary here of saying, stay tuned, there's more coming but right now. The action item in front of you will actually let me pause for a second and see if you know and Nelson or Emma, I don't know if Brian's here as staff people or any of the board members that are on the EAC. Bruce, Mike, want to chime in with anything else to summarize where we are right now. Well, this is Bruce Wilson. And I had a pleasure to speaking with them. And they'll see me on the day for a little less than an hour about some of the direction she might be heading in or ways that I can work with her. And around our to the county. And I'm just going to read some of your, what we talked about, and Nelson with the minute that you sent me. And what and Nelson, what we talked about was connect with the municipalities in the counties, all the people who was with us. And she was like, they already, you know, they already a part of us so easy to get the word out about diversity, equity, and inclusion, based on all the partners, you know, who works with CCRPC, you know, and getting it out to the communities in which they serve. And then see when they are really connected. And then, you know, they can get that like more like boots on the ground. So all the different information they sense in the community about the work that's happening to CCRPC could be something about the IAC or, you know, make sure that we want that language to be right up front every time. And it creates some form of communication on all the cities, you know, sort of a regional equity collaboration to share resources and get the words to the people who mine. Think about giving out a survey to all the municipalities that work with us. You know, it's like, you know, to gauge what they already know about equity and inclusion. What equity and inclusion means to them and how we can help support them in their work within their municipality, which what happens is that, you know, so it's a lot easier to try to find out what people know based on what we're trying to do, you know what their goals and ideas and suggestions are. So it's easier like the IAC, certainly the IAC is not a guiding star in that it's easier to learn from the people what equity and diversity and inclusion means to them from what way some of the ways that might they might have been affected by it and how we can make a change or give ideas and suggestions. So, because we already work with Chidney County Agents, you know, that's who we are at Chidney County. So, how wonderful it is to get the information we're doing a little survey, but people who work with us are directors and see what they know about it first, you know what I mean. And in ways that we've presented in their demographics, because they know the people who they serve, you know. And then another part of diversified the, you know, diversified the CCPR staff and specifically, you know, her own team because in Burlington, Tyisha had like 10 people working for her. And it's not that to add to this. There's no way in the world you can do this on your own, not at all, not even tiny bit. And we're way, way larger than believe it or not than Burlington's who, you know, they work with a lot of people but what we're trying to do. And with our own municipalities that work with us. It's so much work and then the people who they serve, I don't know what's each city they represent, you know, South Burlington. I don't know how many residents that they work with, but it's a lot. And with the words of people who we serve first, I think that's more, I think she's on the right track about getting the information about EAC and the Jedi to all the people who we serve first. And if we do that. That's gigantic. Think about bringing more people on the boards, of course, Charlie's always good with that. And interns. Specifically, people come now. I'm telling you my program nonprofit executive director, and I couldn't do the work that I do. If I didn't bring intelligence from like, from UVM say Mike jumping colleges. Oh, God, thank you. And if you based on what they want to do in life, you know, like, you know, somebody will be a part of a equity and community or diversity equity and inclusion, you know, under those all those programs are within colleges now. And so if we can get some interns involved and help Anna Nelson boots on the ground, possibly it's a good thing. What would they do for them. They could be visited the colleges, like the younger students can be a part of making sure other students are a part of equity and inclusion and, and then in their work as a team with other colleges. It's not much more created equity in its statement and code of conduct. And we all can follow something that we that we thought we can get. I'm going to help all the way if I can research from other localities doing this work and attend like webinars seminars, you know, things like that around country, and we can also learn what other people are doing. It's so much easier to cut and paste this work that you know what other people put in thousands of dollars to already learn, you know, they brought in consulting and they brought in all kind of things and it's so much easier. So, and Nelson or any of us can sit behind like we're doing now having a Zoom meeting and learn ways that we think can help us one word can help us. And continue to work on this is her continue to work on leading the AC while providing guidance for them and reach out meet with community leaders meet the new equity equity manager for the city of Boston. She's already reached out to me and want to meet with me and talk about, I guess, what some goals and objectives are so I asked Anna and Nelson to go, go with me to once I meet when I meet with the air McGuire she's the equity director for the city of essence in the school district. There you go. So we talked about. Yeah, thank you, Bruce. So yeah that that gave you a little flavor and that and that's not the entirety of the list that and Nelson. So, we're going to, you know, I think to for her sanity and her sake. Yeah, thank you, Bruce, but a lot to just kind of stage this right we're going to have to eat the elephant one bite at a time. And I'm hoping the, yeah, the equity committee can dig into the equity statement and code of conduct that does feel like a critical thing to me to to get going on that. And hopefully take a look at the seds document over the next couple months is short term items. And then I think we're going to probably spend the next year really getting to know each other and trying to make progress on these issues so that was, you made me think of something else, but I lost it already. So, there's, there's a lot to do there I guess I'll summarize it that way. And the first thing we have to do though is actually formally appoint the equity advisory committee members. We did talk about this at our executive committee meeting. The volunteers that we have are more numerous than we had had, you know, we were talking in previous discussion thinking, oh, there probably be at least six or eight community members that would like to be part of our equity advisory committee. I didn't do the final count here. Emma, do you know is it 14 something like that. So, so the great news. Oh, I'm sorry, Brad. Oh, sorry, that was an inadvertent chirp in there. But. Oh, Brad, were you trying to say something. No. Okay. So anyway, we brought this list to the executive committee. There were a couple of names that had volunteered that we missed before that meeting so we added them to the list. And we're asking for action to formally appoint these members as the equity advisory committee going forward. And I expect this, the membership will evolve some over the coming months. But we wanted to kind of start here and just kind of keep working on it. So I'll make a motion to approve the list of members of the. EAC. Oh, second that. All those in favor say, just raise your hands for I. Oh gosh, I'm frozen. You can't see that I raised my hand. We can hear you. Okay. The motion passes. And we now have an official equity advisory committee with a lot of community input. Which is great. Absolutely great. So thank everybody who has, you know, agreed to do the hard work that this could be coming up. Next is the legislative breakfast priorities. Yeah, and I'm very conscious of the hour we're getting close to 8pm and I don't want to keep you till nine. Because that feels like cruel and unusual punishment when we started at five. So this is, as you can tell, this is a draft kind of building on the presentation we did last year. And you'll see just some notes in here in red and also highlighted in yellow from our conversation at the executive committee. If you could take a spin through this. If you've had a chance to look at it included the whole presentation in the packet. If you have any other suggestions, if you could feed that to me or one of the executive committee members before our December executive committee, which is on December. Well, how about if I say by the end of this month, November 30th, I'll try to incorporate those for the next executive committee meeting. I don't know if there's any quick feedback that people want to offer, but I don't want to make, we could spend a long time on this. Well, I do think, you know, you're on the right track with workforce I want to reinforce that with child care because I know South Burlington did a poll of its residents for how to use the ARPA funds. And as we talked about, I think Taylor was mentioning, you know, in the upcoming weeks, folks will be asked what that stuff to work. And the two things that the residents came up with was number one childcare, and then number two sewer and water. I mean, these are big things for getting the work done. I think they're timely. I hope the legislature is going to be paying attention to it. And I'll send you something I got, which is helpful for tips on childcare that municipalities can do and implement that will improve it because it's a big deal. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Absolutely. Any other comments? I really do, you know, feel free to give me a call if you want to talk through something or if you want to shoot an email, or however, text, whatever is the easiest way to communicate happy to do that some more. For those of you new to the board. I think Emma already sent you an invitation in the last couple days probably for December 8. 730. So we're trying to, we're going to try to do it in person. We'll see how well that works. Catherine says not well. No. Yeah, see Catherine this is what happens when you miss the executive committee meeting. It's 730. It's a 730 breakfast and then we try to get into the program at eight. And, you know, obviously this is a lot of seeds we're planting with the legislature and you know so we try to like plant the seeds and then leave some time for conversation with the legislators so. Yeah, thank you for any more feedback or input you have on this. Thank you, Charlie. And so pay attention. There was a pretty good turnout even last year, even though it was on zoom so yeah, good. Next is the chair and executive directors update. The only thing I have is for chairs I want to thank Chris for taking care of the executive committee and the regular meeting in October. When I was really having a very nice time on vacation that had been long delayed from the originally planned for when we had the COVID lockdown. And then he picked it up at the very last minute because as we came home as came home from the lovely vacation. I rolled into getting sick and got sicker and at the executive committee meeting I was getting diagnosed with pneumonia so it. I'm just just through the antibiotics and just be covering with the fatigue is still pretty substantial. So I thank Chris for all he did and thank you Catherine we're happy to have you back. I think I exhausted Charlie and staff I'm afraid. Good. That's good case I'm on their toes. But that's why I'm not exactly sure about things like the legislative breakfast yet. And Benjamin asked a question in the chat if it will not be hybrid it will be it'll only be in person. I know I'm real nervous about that because my immune system has been just to. Yeah, this, this, this season, do not do anything you're uncomfortable with really Catherine we can we can figure it out. So I'm feeling brave. Oh I felt great too because we were totally coveted to the max including the bivalent when we were traveling came home, you know, the air quality of Naples wasn't quite so good. And so we had a little I had a little scratch and I thought my voice went the next day when we had a meeting and to hire a new planner just picked up one of those European variants. I wish it was. Why didn't even thinking pneumonia. Yeah it wasn't COVID she just got some other. Get your flu shots to folks. Absolutely. So, actually, as my husband said I was really quite sick if I hadn't had the prevenor 13 several years ago I probably would have been in the hospital. So it was, it just hit hard. And I haven't been sick in a decade. I mean that's the weird thing and I've been sick twice this year now. Also can vaccinate you against 28 forms of pneumonia. Yeah, yeah the next one that's really good, you know, because there are more variants now that they can put on a shot. Anyway, folks get your flu shot. Get your, get prevenar if you haven't had the immune pneumonia because it turns out it's going around because I had three other friends that that hadn't had contact with in a while, and they've had pneumonia to so it's out there along with RSV and other really terrible respiratory diseases right now. So that, you know, that's a public health warning and my chair comments and so it's Charlie. You know, director's updates. Yeah, we really touch on a wide range of topics in these meetings, public health updates to. Yeah, so Catherine I'm glad you're feeling a little bit better I hope you feel even better still, and you know what will be in touch, you know about, you know, we'll talk about it the next executive committee about how to actually run that breakfast. Thank you, or before. So hiring updates. I think we kind of covered a lot of this. So Mackenzie I'm sorry you didn't get to meet joined our business office of maybe, maybe a month ago now. And Nelson join us on October 31. So that was great and then Darren, the who we stole from the town of Essex has joined us as a planner. And so when we promoted Taylor that opened up Taylor's position Darren has joined us as a senior planner on the land use side. So, so we'll get Darren in front of you one of these months sorry was there something you're going to say they're telling. That's my hiring update and so we are now fully staffed and I'm just holding on to the desk to hold status quo. Building homes together I'm hoping you saw some of the media on that we did a press conference with Champlain Housing Trust and ever north, encouraging more housing production. I do think there's going to be some legislative efforts to address the housing crisis. In deference to Jeff I'm going to say still. And item C here the communications union district vote passed overwhelmingly in the five communities that have that on the ballot. That was Shelburton South Burlington Essex junction Essex and Williston. It was like 80 plus percentiles. So those communities are now funding reps for that board and I think we're probably going to be based on the last conversation with those municipal managers. I think we're going to be asked to support that a little bit. As they're in startup mode and Janda, who joined us as an energy project manager last year is doing that work. One other thing for those of you, maybe work more rural towns that we're not one of those five. Once we have a communications union district established towns can join that district by a simple vote of the select board. And I know that's something that has been discussed to Jericho and Westford and under hill at least those are the ones off the top of my mind. So yeah, please let me know if you'd like to have a conversation about that and timing there's no I don't think there's an immediate rush by any stretch but if you are interested or want to have a conversation we should have that conversation. And item D is more of a heads up the legislature put 40 something million dollars into this year's state budget for municipal building energy resilience projects. And so that's mostly around fuel switching. So if you can go from, you know, oil to some more renewable or electrification of your heating. There's quite a bit of money out there for that. It's running through the buildings in general services department. The RPCs are part of that program. We're getting funded to kind of be the liaison between BGS and municipalities so there will be more coming on that in the coming weeks. So that's a heads up. And that's all I have madam chair and turn it back to you. And thank you. Well, as always, the committee and liaison activities reports are either in your packet or via link, depending on your choice. And if we don't have any members items. I move we adjourn. Is there a second to that. Here it seconds it. All those in favor say aye. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.